Pretty quiet on the Pirates news lately, so why not jump out into the rest of MLB. The big story yesterday was Miami enacting yet another firesale trade on its weary fan base. Go read that link; Grant’s awesome. I’ll still be here when you get back.

Good read, eh? Sucks to be a Marlins fan right now. Here’s how the trade shakes out down on South Beach (click to embiggen):

On the flipside, Toronto immediately improves by leaps and bounds. Still, it will be hard for them to compete in the AL East. At most only three teams from the division can make the playoffs and the fourth place Jays were 17 games behind the Rays. Even if you figure that they added 10 wins worth of new players (Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, John Buck and Emilio Bonifacio combined for ~10 WAR in 2012) and traded ~3.4 wins, that’s only a net of 6.6 wins improvement. A full season from Jose Bautista might be worth an additional 3 wins which would get them an 83-79 record. Just good enough to miss the playoffs again and break your Canadian heart.

Travis Snider should see lots of time in RF. He’s a power bat that hasn’t lived up to his potential yet, so this is an upside play for the Pirates. Alex Presley and Casey McGehee are about to see a lot more of the bench.

The bullpen is going to miss having Brad Lincoln around but the Pirates dealt from their strength. Jason Grilli and Joel Hanrahan will continue to handle the 8th and 9th.